Stephen F. Austin went back and forth on slavery issue 10-15-14

Published 4:21 am, Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Col. James Fannin put his slaves up for sale on Oct. 21, 1835, in order to raise quick cash for the hard-strapped Texas Revolution.

For the Georgia native and many others, Lone Star independence and the South’s “peculiar institution” were sacred and inseparable causes. But that was not the case for the man now known as the “Father of Texas.” Caught between the economic needs of the struggling colony and the nagging doubts of his own conscience, no one lost more sleep over the emotion-charged question of slavery than Stephen F. Austin.

Although they saw nothing wrong with centuries of systematic cruelty toward the peon and Indian, the makers of the Mexican Revolution were united in pious opposition to slavery. In July 1824, this sentiment was put into law banishing bondage from the whole country.

Taking the vague edict at face value, Austin’s original batch of 300 colonists presumed it meant instant abolition. Several months later, however, the Americans were relieved to learn that the new ordinance ignored the status of slaves already in Texas and outlawed only future importation.

Meanwhile, the legislature of Coahuila, which at that time included Texas, was considering an anti-slavery amendment for the state constitution. Getting wind of the alarming direction the deliberations were taking, Austin hurriedly penned a long proposal to the governor.

Insisting slave labor was essential for the production of cotton and sugar in Texas, he tactfully suggested that his colonists be allowed to bring slaves into the province until 1840. After that date, the practice could be permanently prohibited and the grandchildren of slaves legally freed at age 25 for males and 15 for females.

The matter came to a head in the summer of 1826, when Austin was informed that the draft version of the slavery statute mandated immediate emancipation. But last-minute compromises resulted in a watered-down version calling for freedom at birth for the children of current slaves and set December 1827 as the deadline for bringing additional chattel into Texas.

These potential obstacles posed by the Coahuila constitution were overcome with surprising ease. The ever inefficient Mexican authorities failed to free the newborn, and a steady stream of adults continued to flow unimpeded with new slaves entering Texas as indentured servants under “contract” to their masters.

Then in September 1829 came a presidential decree that provoked mass hysteria among slaveholding Texans. Exercising emergency powers granted him to repel a rumored reconquest by Spain, Vicente Guerrero proclaimed the unqualified equality of all men under the Mexican flag.

The day he received the earth-shaking news, the governor of Texas appealed for an exclusive exemption for his territory. Despite efforts at secrecy, word leaked out producing widespread panic. A Nacogdoches resident asked Austin, “In the name of God, what shall we do? We are ruined forever should this measure be adopted!”

Shaken by the outcry, President Guerrero backtracked three months later. Henceforth, slavery would be tolerated only in Texas.

After promoting the cause of slavery for so many years, Austin suddenly switched sides in 1830. He confided to a cousin that annexation by the United States would be possible only if Texas entered the Union as a free state. In a letter to another relative, he expressed a strong desire to attract Swiss and German colonists because they were staunch abolitionists.

“The idea of seeing such a country as this overrun by a slave population almost makes me weep,” Austin candidly confessed. Explaining in vivid and disturbing detail his private vision of an American apocalypse, he added ominously, “It is in vain to tell a North American that the white population will be destroyed some 50 or 80 years hence by the negroes.”

At the risk of losing the confidence of the colonists, Austin openly argued against the institution of slavery by condemning it as “the curse of curses.” To his deep disappointment, the reaction was nearly unanimously negative.

By May 1833, as events began to move inevitably toward revolution, Austin gave up his unpopular campaign. With regret and resignation he declared, “Texas must be a slave country. Circumstances and unavoidable necessity compel it.”

A complex and compassionate human being, Stephen F. Austin was first and foremost a pragmatist who always subordinated heart to mind. Personally he detested slavery and never doubted that it contained the seeds of a southern catastrophe. At the same time, he was so committed to the welfare of the men and women that accepted his invitation to settle in Texas, he felt honor bound to abide by their wishes.

Bartee Haile’s latest book “Murder Most Texan,” a collection of 16 classic cases, may now be pre-ordered at barteehaile.com or by mailing a check for $26.65 to Bartee Haile, P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549.